To Strengthen is to Change..

I will get to the title in a minute.  It has been a crazy three days.  After my hard day on Sunday I woke up to this:

It was a double, and it was huge and it was so bright.  You could totally see from one end to the other.  The kids and I were freaking out.  I love the reaction that kids have to rainbows, that they are so magical.  Ok, I still think that they are magical.

This was just what I needed to remind myself that today is a new day.  I decided, since it was Holden's birthday, that we were going to have a fun day.
It was a weird day because our two highschoolers got out of school early.  I had decided that I was going to go get Holden for lunch so I asked if Halea and Hayden wanted to come.  Did I really have to ask if they wanted free food?  We went and got Holden and Heidi from school and Holden chose a really yummy place called The Blue Lemon.  We had a fun time.  I can't believe that he is 10 years old.  It seems like yesterday that we were getting to meet him.  Defiinitely one of my top ten favorite days, September 16, 2003.   After lunch we ran and got a little treat from the store to share with his class.  One of my other top 10 days is the day that the schools said no more homemade treats for birthdays or any other reason.  That is a lot of pressure off of us uncreative crazy mothers.

One day when he gets his braces off, we will see his teeth through a real smile again.

We were going up to our brother in law's for dinner that night so we decided to bring pizza.  Then we decided to do the "Great Pizza Challenge".  We bought 4 pepperoni pizzas from 4 different places to see which we liked better!   Doesn't that sound fun?  We got a Domino's a Papa Murphys, Costco and Little Caesars. We got the pizzas all cooked and warmed up and cut them into smaller pieces so that everyone could taste each pizzas.
Here are the results:
 Papa Murphy's:  3 votes
Dominos:  2 Votes
costco:  1 vote  (in all fairness I did overcook it:)
Little Caesars:  2 votes

It was a fun night.  Holden got laser tag guns,  so look out! There is our warning and disclaimer for the neighborhood..  And my aplogies in advance:)

Tuesday was another crazy busy day.  The big thing that was happening on Tuesday was that Halea was speaking at our Stake Standards night.  I was excited to hear what she had to say.  She is so smart and spiritually mature, I was anxious to hear her wisdom.  The question that the Presidency gave her to speak about was "How does having personal prayer and a relationship with my Heavenly Father help strengthen me?"
The way that she prepares, studies and delivers her talks is very much how Lance approaches them.  She has a great way of drawing you in and then making you really think about things.  She gave an excellent introduction to her topic and then she said that she likes to dissect the questions that are her topics.  She looked up "strengthen" in the dictionary and it said that to strengthen is to change.  What an ahh haa moment.  It is a very true statement.  Then she restated her question.  "How does having personal prayer and a relationship with my Heavenly Father help CHANGE  me?" Brilliant. When you are diligent about strengthening yourself, you naturally change.  Change does not come easy, nor does it always feel good.  it often comes with a price and pain.  But the end result is so worth it.   She talked about how she knows that when we pray we are heard.  She gave an excellent talk.  All three of the girls did, then the Stake YW presidency and the Stake President finished it all off.  It was a great night.  Afterword lot's of people came up and said how great she did.  I told everyone that I wrote her talk for her, but they didn't believe me.  I just couldn't be any prouder of her.  I take no credit for who she is today.  As I was listening to her speak, all I could think about was how hard she has had to work to be who she is.  She has rarely if ever gone to bed without personal prayer and scripture study.  She has set her standards higher than anyone I know.  She has sacrificed a lot of "fun" to remain true to who she is.  She is always herself, and never who people "think" she should be.  I could go on and on.  I believe that she did come with all of this potential with in her, but she is the one who has completed it.  It is amazing to be her parent.  I was so grateful to have Heidi there too.  I am glad that she has been able to spend a little time in YW with Halea so she can learn from her.  Heidi is another real sweetheart, but in different ways.  I really felt like the luckiest mom.

Tuesday afternoon my dad and Louise came up for a quick visit before they head back to Arizona for the winter.  It is really funny because my dad used to talk about how much he could not stand the snowbirds (old people that leave Arizona for the summer then return in the winter).  Well, now he is one:).  It was fun for them to be here.

This morning I woke up from dreaming about getting kicked in the head all night.  I looked over and realized that I was not dreaming:

This poor little girlie has nightmares every night!  Then usually ends up in our bed.  Not sure how to fix this behavior.?
In the morning Hilary and I went on our walk with a few of our friends.  We did our usual route through the cemetery.  As we passed by Tates and Trev I noticed that there was a little jar of flowers.  I passed by and then I felt like I should go see them.  I ran over and as I got closer I realized that there was a note.  It was a really sweet note, that was signed, Love Me.  I would love to know who wrote it?

Later in the afternoon we had Parent Teacher conferences.  I am always nervous to go to those for a few reasons.  I am always worried about what Hayden's teachers will say.  He thinks that he is pretty funny, but sometimes the teachers don't.  Today Hayden got a pretty good report. I was also worried today because I knew that i would see a lot of people that might not know what has happened with sweet Tatum.  The high school is weird because all of the schools suddenly combine to this one place so i see a lot of people from our old neighborhood.  Luckily I went with a friend so she was being my blocker from people from our past.  Good to have friends that will do the distracting.   It is really hard to feel anxious like that because it really isn't me.  I usually love to go and run into people that I haven't see for awhile.  I love to talk and catch up.  I think that it is just all too fresh.  If people know what happened it isn't bad because I don't have to explain anything.  Most people that know about Tatum have been very sweet and always ask how we are doing.  Anyway, I survived it.

Something that I feel like I have been working hard on to change in myself ,since Tatum got sick, was to pay attention to the important things that we should be doing and not to sweat over the trivial things in life.  I must say that my house has suffered a bit.  I am a little later for things.  But I must say that life is way more fulfilling.  I find myself taking more time to visit with people and not worrying so much about time.  I feel more interested in individuals and their lives.  I try hard to act on promptings and gut feelings so that I can try to be at the right place that I am supposed to be, so that my Heavenly Father can hopefully use me as a force for good.  Today I had one of those experiences.  When I got home from Parent Teacher conference I had about an hour and a half before I needed to get showered and ready for my appointment that I had.  Earlier in the day I had decided that I wanted to go on a bike ride.  I wasn't sure because the wind was terrible and it was almost getting a little chilly.  Then my friend decided that she didn't have time to come with me.  Then I was really doubting whether I should go because there was certainly plenty for me to do at home.  Then Lance came home.  I thought for sure he would come with me.  Nope..  This is where he divulged that he is not as much a leisure rider as a commuter rider.  Good to know.   Against all of my better judgement I decided to move forward and go on the bike ride.  I was going to go up into Alpine and do hills and for some reason I decided to go on the trail like I always do.  As I was fighting the hurricane winds I was going down a hill and saw one of my neighbors in their car.  I pulled over to say hi.  Their family has had a lot of crazy things recently so I asked how they were doing.  We proceeded to talk for about a half hour.  As i was standing there I realized why I ended up there.  I don't mean this in a braggy way because I am so imperfect at listening to promptings and acting.  It was just pretty neat to have ended up where I think that I was supposed to be.  And I didn't even really care that I only got in about half of my ride.  A few years ago I would have been a little stressed because I didn't get in my full workout.   What a great thing to be able to release those feelings of anxiousness .  Again, let me reiterate, that I am so imperfect at all of this, but I am trying.  I want so desperately to be who I am supposed to be, and to honor Tatum and Trevin in all that they have taught me.  I don't ever want to forget.    It is going to require a lot of work and strength and change.


I hope this is coherent, I am falling asleep as I am writing.